Holidays and Festivals in Ireland

With a history steeped in religion, folk lore and music, Ireland abounds in festivals and holidays. Such events here are usually very energetic, light-hearted, and full of music and dance. Many are overtly religious in nature while others are unabashedly secular and centered on merry-making. The country’s rural character is preserved in many festivals which celebrate harvests as well as abundance of animal stock. Overall no matter what time of year one is in Ireland, there is sure to be some festival or other being celebrated.

New Years Day

A fresh new year is ushered in with several rounds of partying, drinking and general merry-making. People go out with friends to pubs, discos and clubs, where on the stroke of midnight toasts are drunk and everyone cheers. Outside fireworks light up the sky while Church bells ring in the New Year.

Shrove Tuesday

This falls on the day before the beginning of Lent. On Shrove Tuesday, many people in Ireland too follow the British custom of eating pancakes. The next forty days of Lent are supposed to be a time of abstinence during which people give up a favorite form of indulgence like chocolate, sugar, cigarettes or meat.

Chalk Sunday

A popular Irish custom is that of Chalk Sunday observed on The first Sunday after Shrove Tuesday, when bachelors who should have been married were marked with a heavy streak of chalk on the back of their 'Sunday coats' as they entered Church for the Sunday mass. Traditionally, Catholics were not allowed to marry during Lent, so they had to wait until after Easter. Marking them with chalk is a way of teasing them for not being married.

St. Patrick’s Day

Most widely representative of Irish culture across the world, St Patrick’s’ Day is celebrated on March 17 in honor of the patron saint of Ireland. A particular tradition on this day is ‘the wearing of the green”, when people sport a sprig of shamrock, the three leafed-plant that is the symbol of St Patrick, who used one as a visual aid to explain the Trinity. People also wear green clothing, badges, buttons or ribbons on this day.

A riot of celebrations is witnessed in all cities and towns of Ireland on St Patrick’s Day. People attend religious services and have community and family gatherings as well. Colorful parades pass through towns and cities led by brass and pipe bands. There are musical events and pilgrimages throughout Ireland on this day as well. At night, people sit down to special dinners of corned beef and cabbage, traditional Irish fare. It is also traditional to have a drink of Patrick's Pot (whiskey) on this day.

Good Friday

Good Friday is a day of remembrance for it was on this day that Lord Jesus was crucified. In Ireland, traditionally, no work is done in the fields, but only on the house, preferably inside. No blood is to be shed, no hammering of nails and no wood working since all this mimics the action of the Roman soldiers who nailed the hands and feet of the Savior onto the wood of the cross. Many people fast on Good Friday and also keep absolute silence from noon until around three in the afternoon, for that was the time of the Lord's greatest agony on the cross. After a visit to church, Good Friday is a day for visiting graveyards and holy wells.

Easter

The mood undergoes a complete transformation with the arrival of Easter Sunday which commemorates the resurrection on Christ. This is a time of joy and feasting but the day in Ireland starts with an unusual custom. Traditionally Children and adults would take a pail of water and watch the reflection of the sun, then jiggle it so the water moves, making the sun appear to dance. Nowadays the special Easter service in the Church is most important followed by festivities which however recall the pagan celebrations of this originally pagan festival. The egg, being a symbol of new birth and spring plays an important part in the celebrations on this day. Children can boil and paint them. They can be given away, eaten, rolled in a race to see which one can go the farthest – best known though is the egg hunt where they are hidden and the children set out to find them. Another Irish custom is that of cluideog (cludog) according to which the children gather raw eggs, then cook or roast them in a special contraption built at the edge of their farm. A typical Easter ritual involves butchers, who for the long days of Lent have gone through some slow business, holding a mock funeral for a herring. This is symbolic of the end of Lent, the end of abstinence, and the return to eating meat.

May Day

The spring festivities continue with May Day which in Ireland was originally known as belltaine, from the "lucky fires" or "two fires" of the Druids of Erin. May Day is a folk festival that was celebrated before Christianity and is still celebrated with maypole dancing and flower gathering. Bushes are decorated with flowers or eggshells, which are symbols of life. There is plenty of dancing and singing.

Orangeman’s Day

This is primarily observed in Northern Ireland and among the Protestants. July 12 marks the anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. Members of the Orange Order parade through the streets of Belfast and other towns in Northern Ireland accompanied by brass bands, the fife and drum bands.

Orangeman’s Day, because of its nature, is often occasion of conflicts. Since the remit of the Orange Order is to defend the Protestant religion, the parades and marches held on Orangeman’s Day have in the past often been disrupted in the past by Catholic groups especially when these marched through Catholic areas.

Christmas

Christmas in Ireland is celebrated in much the same way as other parts of the western world. Weeks before, stores put up Christmas decorations to entice shoppers. Schools and colleges prepare for special concerts and nativity plays and most establishes have Christmas parties at which people eat, drink and make merry. In homes, families put up Christmas trees which are prettily decorated. Presents are piled up beneath it while children go to bed after putting up their stockings in the hope that Santa Claus would fill them with gifts. At midnight, the faithful attend church for the special Christmas service.
Christmas day is given over to feasting and most families gather around an elaborate lunch typically consisting of Christmas specialties like roast turkey, roast potatoes and vegetables, Brussel sprouts, carrots, cauliflower, parsnips and any other family favorites, followed by Christmas cake or a Christmas pudding.

St. Stephen's Day

Anticipating the end of the present year and the beginning of a new one is St Stephen’s Day and in Ireland this is associated with the custom of  "Hunting the Wren" or "Going on the Wren.". Celtic myth had it that the robin that was supposed to represent the New Year killed the wren which represented the Old Year during this time. While this is a national holiday in Ireland, the celebrations have little connection to the Saint who was the first Christian martyr, stoned to death shortly after the Crucifixion. Originally, groups of small boys would hunt for a wren, and then chase the bird until they either have caught it or it has died from exhaustion. Early in the morning of St. Stephen's Day, the wren would be carried from house to house by the boys.. The money collected would be used to buy food and drink for the "wren dance" held on this night.